Chapter 21: Lightning and Light

The five golden suns shone down on the Golden Sun Realm as a battle raged between Sen, Rain and a wolf.

On the third island, the scorched dirt was already burning under the heat of the five harsh suns overhead. The Azure Class Ravager—a monstrous wolf forged from blinding white radiance—burst through the lingering plume of ash, its jaws snapped wide. It lashed out, its claws manifested from pure light, cutting through the sky.

Rain moved before the air could even expand.

Lightning cracked violently around her. As an Emerald Class Eclipser, her body flickered, naked electricity wrapping around her flesh as she intercepted the beast mid-stride. Her lightning-forged blade met the wolf’s claws of pure light—once, twice, a dozen times in a fraction of a second. Sparking shockwaves pounded the floating rock beneath their boots.

The wolf snarled, driving its weight forward to force Rain back. Opening its maw, a dense orb of concentrated light bloomed in its throat, targeted point-blank at her chest.

A soft exhale of cherry-flavored vapor drifted into the chaotic air.

"Too close, Rain," a lazy voice muttered.

Space folded in on itself with a sound like tearing silk. A dark, jagged rift sliced open directly behind Rain. Sen casually reached through the spatial tear, grabbed the collar of Rain’s coat, and yanked her backward into the void a microsecond before the wolf detonated its blast.

BOOM!

The light bomb detonated, sending a catastrophic shockwave sweeping across the third island. Flames roared outward, consuming the surrounding vegetation and cracking the island’s stone foundation, though lightning still spiderwebbed furiously through the smoke.

A second portal opened twenty yards away, spitting Rain and Sen onto the ground.

Rain immediately rolled to her feet, her blade sizzling with raw electrical charge. Her cold eyes locked onto the Ravager, completely unbothered by the hellscape surrounding them. "Don’t touch the collar."

Sen took a slow, deep drag from his vape, blowing a pale plume toward the five blazing suns above. "You were about to get vaporized, Rain. A little gratitude wouldn’t kill you. Though this fight might, if you keep jumping in like a Saint with a death wish."

"Shut up and fight," Rain snapped, her voice as icy as her reaction time.

She stepped forward, and her Eclipser ability—Lightning Space—flared into full effect. The air within a fifty-meter radius ionized completely. Small arcs of purple and blue lightning danced across the ground, accelerating her movement past human limits. She blurred forward, her lightning-empowered sword seeking the wolf’s throat.

The Ravager wolf roared, its light-manifested body density instantly shifting. Even against an Emerald Class speedster, a Rank III Ravager’s sheer raw power was oppressive. It parried Rain’s strike with a sweep of its tail, the force sending her skidding backward, her boots leaving scorched trenches in the dirt.

"It’s adapting to the speed," Rain growled, her breath steady despite the sheer Astral Burden pressing down on her Tether.

"Yeah, and it’s ruining my afternoon. Wait, is it still afternoon?" Sen sighed, flicking a stray cinder off his sleeve. He held up his free hand, his fingers twitching slightly as he activated his Eclipser ability: Spatial Control.

Instead of just tearing open portals, the space around the Ravager began to warp and bend. The air turned viscous, folding the space around it into pockets. When the wolf lunged at Rain, its forward momentum suddenly shifted sideways, as if the geometry of the island itself had been bent out of shape.

"Now!" Sen called out lazily, taking another puff. "I’m holding the space around it in place, but it’s chewing through my energy like crazy. Hit it!"

Rain didn’t waste a millisecond. She burst forward, her pure lightning weaving through the distorted air, driving her blade straight into the creature’s flank.

Light and electricity collided with a deafening screech. The wolf howled, its pure light flaring so brightly it blinded the horizon. With a ferocious blast of raw light energy, it shattered Sen’s spatial grip and forced both Contractors back.

Rain landed beside Sen, her armor smoking, her lightning flickering as the beast began to push them toward the edge of Floating Island Three.

Sen pocketed his vape with a heavy sigh, looking at the creature growling through the flames. "Great. We’re officially being pushed back. Remind me why we entered an Eternal Breach again?"

"How would I know," Rain said coldly, raising her blade as lightning roared back to life around her. "Hold the spatial field. We go again."

Sen just sighed, nodding as he started to question all his decisions when he left home.

---

Meanwhile, in District 2, after Orson took out the trash, he entered the house to wash his hands before going up. Lenora was looking up at the ceiling when Orson walked up to her. He looked down at her, and Lenora, who was looking at the ceiling, saw another shape blocking the view till it turned out to be Orson.

"Are you hungry? I made food."

Lenora looked up at him. "Wait, you can cook?"

"Of course I can."

"So why didn’t you last night?"

"Just felt like it."

Lenora just looked at him and sighed. "Fine. Let’s see what you cooked."

But before she could move, Orson had already moved closer to her and carried her in his arms.

Weird, Lenora remarked as they walked out of the room. "You smell like burned rain."

"Does rain have a smell?"

"I know it doesn’t. I’m just asking because it’s like you were hit by lightning."

"How could you possibly know that?"

Lenora looked at Orson, remembering. Storm Saint. "Oh, right."

They reached the living room, and the room felt warm. Being carried by Orson just made her body warmer.

After they reached down, Orson took her to the chair, set her down, and helped her to sit before serving her some of his soup. He sat on the other side with his food as well.

Lenora looked at the food before taking a small bite.

It was like her head exploded from the front. The taste was like a version of her as a child tasting sugar for the first time flashed in her mind. It was no exaggeration to say this was the best food she had ever eaten.

But Orson did not need to know that. She thought as she ate her food.

But Orson was lost in his own thoughts about his wife, since she did not have long to live.